From: james@...
Date: 2002-04-30T09:18:25+09:00
Subject: RE: RubyConf.new(2002) - ideas for agenda


> From: Avi Bryant [mailto:avi@beta4.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 1:44 PM
> To: ruby-talk ML
> Subject: Re: RubyConf.new(2002) - ideas for agenda
>

<snip/>

> The crucial feature for me, however is this:
> the Smalltalk environment has no concept of an edit/run cycle.
> Instead, your application is constantly running, in the same process
> as the environment, and any change you make is made to running code
> (for example, each method is compiled to byte code as you finish
> editing it, and is inserted into the live class; if you add an
> instance variable to a class, every instance of that class is tracked
> down and copied into a new structure with space for the extra inst
> var).  This is nice in general, but it is almost essential for web
> development.


Maybe this is getting too far a field, but I'm curious why this is
essential for web development.  Most languages do not have this feature,
yet they are used daily for web development.   Is this mostly a matter of
deployment, where one would prefer not to have to stop and restart an
application to change the in-memory code image?


James